Nov. 6, 2018 - Steve Pieczenik
03:54
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi, Dr. | |
| Buchanek. | |
| Folks, if you think this is a really confrontational election today, you better think about our history. | |
| In the 1800s, we had a very vicious election and prior to that, we had a lot of problems. | |
| Let me explain. | |
| In 1797, Adams was the President of the United States. | |
| He had a gentleman whom he didn't particularly like, Thomas Jefferson. | |
| Both were our founding fathers of the Revolution, but Jefferson believed in the French approach to the Revolution, which was more Jacobean, namely killing more people and more sweeping. | |
| Adams, who came from the North, as opposed to Jefferson, who came from Virginia, believed that you had to have a Puritan ethic and that you really needed a hierarchy of people who were far more intelligent and than those in the South or anywhere else. | |
| In any case, in 1797... | |
| John Adams created the Alien and Sedition Act which said that anybody in the United States who was a foreigner had to be thrown out and accompanying him was a gentleman by the name of Alexander Hamilton who had been the first Secretary of the Treasury and was himself an immigrant. | |
| He had come from the Caribbean. | |
| His mother was named Rachel. | |
| She had an old Bible, a Hebrew Bible and he changed his name to Hamilton, went to Columbia and became In turn, Jefferson came up to the... | |
| Presidency in 1800 and he picked a person who was the name Adam Burr. | |
| Aaron Burr was the head of a political party, not Republican. | |
| There weren't Republicans and Democrats then, but he was the head of the political party. | |
| In New York State, he in turn did not get along with Hamilton. | |
| Hamilton felt that Aaron Burr was an embryonic Caesar, and Burr in turn felt that Hamilton was a hypocrite and pernicious to the nation state. | |
| In any case, all immigrants in 1797 were thrown out, including the fact that anybody who was a political opponent was thrown out of the United States, because the French were attacking the American ships that were holding British assets. | |
| In 1800, Jefferson decided to run and he put on his ticket Aaron Burr. | |
| And it turned out, because of the Electoral College, which was somewhat complicated as it is today, it turned out that Jefferson won the election, not by popularity, but by the Electoral College. | |
| Aaron Burr, in turn, became the vice president. | |
| But he had a very serious problem with Alexander Hamilton, who refused to recognize Aaron Burr. | |
| And in turn, what happened in 1804... | |
| Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had a duel. | |
| That's correct. | |
| A duel with pistols. | |
| And unfortunately Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. | |
| Now that was the nature of what went on in the 1800s. | |
| I smile because unfortunately Thomas Jefferson said... | |
| That the election of 1800 was as vicious and as nasty as the Revolutionary War in 1776. | |
| But we also have to remember something. | |
| That history repeats itself. | |
| And George Santayana, the famous philosopher, said, If you do not know the past, you will not understand the present and you will know nothing about the future. | |
| Good luck and good night. | |
| Thank you, America. |
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